Graphical user interfaces (GUIs) provide ways for users of computers and other devices to effectively communicate with the computer. In GUIs, available applications and data sets are often represented by icons consisting of small graphical representations which can be selected by a user and moved on the screen. The data sets (including pages of information) and applications may reside on the local computer or on a remote computer accessed over a network. The selection of icons often takes the place of typing in a command using a keyboard in order to initiate a program or accessing a data set. In general, icons are tiny on-screen symbols that simplify access to a program, command, or data file. Icons are often activated or selected by moving a mouse-controlled cursor onto the icon and pressing one or more times on a mouse button.
GUIs include graphical images on computer monitors and often consist of both icons and windows. (GUIs may also reside on the screens of televisions, kiosks, personal digital assistants (PDAs), automatic teller machines (ATMs), and on other devices and appliances such as ovens, cameras, video recorders and instrument consoles.) A computer window is a portion of the graphical image that appears on the monitor and is dedicated to some specific purpose. Windows allow the user to treat the graphical images on the computer monitor like a desktop where various files can remain open simultaneously. The user can control the size, shape, and position of the windows.
Although the use of GUIs with icons usually simplifies a user's interactions with a computer, GUIs are often tedious and frustrating to use. Icons must be maintained in a logical manner. It is difficult to organize windows and icons when many are similarly displayed at the same time on a single device.
In a drag-and-drop GUI, icons are selected and moved to a target icon to achieve a desired effect. For example, an icon representing a computer file stored on disk may be dragged over an icon containing an image of a printer in order to print the file, or dragged over an icon of a trash can to delete the file. An icon representing a page of information on the World Wide Web may be selected and dragged to a trash can to delete the link to the page of information. The page of information may be on the local machine or on a remote machine. A typical user's screen contains many icons, and only a subset of them will at any one time be valid, useful targets for a selected icon. For example, it would not be useful to drag the icon representing a data file on top of an icon whose only purpose is to access an unrelated multimedia application.
Computerized information gathering using such entities as the World Wide Web is based around the concept of "pages" of information. A page of information consists of any number of textual, graphical, audio/visual, or other elements (i.e. multimedia information) that are sent upon receipt of a request for that particular page by a computer connected to the network from a server (remote) computer that may serve as a host repository for many such pages.
The World Wide Web is an extremely-widespread information service that can deliver both text and non-text multimedia information (audio, video, graphics). The Web is a global hyptertext system. Hypertext is a computer-based protocol for linking documents to other related documents. Links are embedded within the text of a document in the form of highlighted words or images and, when activated, cause the linked document to be retrieved and displayed. The linked document can itself contain links to other documents, and so on, ad infinitum. Links are most commonly activated by pointing and clicking with a mouse.
A computer system may be attached to an information network, such as the World Wide Web, by means of a modem or other network connecting device. Often the user is connected not directly to the information network itself but to an interim computer (network provider) with a direct connection.
The user of the requesting computer (i.e. local computer) may request a specific page by sending a specific page name (such as the Universal Resource Locator, or URL, on the World Wide Web) to the network. This name is interpreted and routed to the correct server, which places the requested page data on the network for retrieval by the requesting computer. As mentioned, a page of information may contain "links" (textual or graphical pointers to other pages of information) that are available to the user of the requesting computer. If the user selects one of these links, the name of the associated information page is then requested and the process continues as described above. In this way, the user of the requesting computer can navigate the information network, requesting pages as desired.
Examples of computers communicating over a network are given in U.S. Pat. No. 5,371,852 to Attanasio et al., issued on Dec. 6, 1994. A description of network configurations that are used to identify and search for information in databases in described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/677,059, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,913,208, to Brown et al, filed on Jul. 9, 1996. These references are herein incorporated by reference in their entirety.
Modern web browsers, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0, allow users to "subscribe" to web pages specified by URLs. For example, users can schedule daily, weekly, or monthly updates for web sites they subscribe to. Subscribing to a web site enables users to automatically update information from a web site on a scheduled basis, without having to visit the site and refresh the content manually. One typical way of setting up a subscription to a web page (such as accomplished when subscribing via Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0) is to view the web page in a browser, add its URL and/or title to a collection of "favorites" (i.e favorite URLS) in a menu, and request subscription notification options, such as: partial or full subscription to a page or only e-mail notification that a page has changed. A full subscription may refer to the downloading of a page and all its linked information, whereas a partial subscription may refer to downloading a page without its linked information. "Favorites" refers to a collection of URLs that a user categorizes as distinctive because, for example, of the pages' utility or because the user wishes to often visit the pages corresponding to the URLs.
Another form of subscribing is through "channels." Channels are Web sites that are automatically updated on a user's computer according to a schedule specified by the content provider. Channels can be displayed in the browser like other web pages, or as a full-screen window, or on a user's desktop. Some channels are also designed to be used as a screen saver.
One common way for users to organize collections of links to web pages, for faster access, involves the manual addition of text to a Favorites menu. Some web browsers permit hierarchical arrangement of favorite URLs using a list of folders. Each folder contains a list of links (specified by URLs) to web pages. For example, web pages may be organized by folders corresponding to topics. As a specific example, a user could create a folder named "Music" for storing URLs corresponding to web pages listing musical events and reviews.
Users may also create desktop "shortcuts" to a current page. (The term "shortcut" is standard in the Microsoft Windows operating system.) These shortcuts are represented by icons on the "desktop" GUI. (In the Windows operating system, the term "desktop" 142 refers specifically to the background of the screen on which windows, icons, and dialog boxes appear. Users can change the desktop color and pattern.) These shortcuts may be created by dragging a link from the web browser to a location on the desktop GUI. If the user clicks on these iconic shortcuts, the web browser is invoked, and the page of information corresponding to the link represented by the shortcut is displayed in the browser. Shortcuts generally permit fast access to programs or web site links.
Users of computers and other systems sometimes desire to conveniently specify and control the relative update times of subscriptions and channel information. Users also desire to organize and consolidate desktop icons representing links to web pages. "Update time" refers to the time interval between acquisitions of new material from a subscribed web page. Typical update times include "hourly," "daily," and "weekly." Web browsers generally have textual and menu-list methods for specifying web-page subscription. However, these methods are not intuitive to users and give little graphical indication or consolidation of update times for web pages specified by iconic shortcuts on a desktop. For example, in the Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 browser, subscription schedules are displayed in text lines corresponding to each web page name. In particular, a web page name and URL are listed next to words like "daily" or "weekly". These lists are not apparent on the desktop.